Overpriced Memory Not Worth It!

[SilentDeath]

i have done some testing on ram recently. the first thing i noticed is ANY ram at the same timings, same fsb, same ratio with the rest of the components exactly the same, will perofrom exactly the same, apart from small random variances which always happen when testing
i shared the same opinion about tighter timings not being worth the money, i still do, ram is atm, stupidly priced. the reson for the price is noone makes ram modules faster than pc3200 (i trust directhex not to have lied about that!), so all of the faster chips are just overclocked pc3200 ram. the difference between it and the pc3200 is that its guaranteed to run at that speed.
the market pushing ram speeds faster is and has always been p4 processors, due to not having adjustable multiplyers. that is where fast ram is needed, and p4 can take good advantage of it aswell unlike amd cpus, so its not a huuuge waste...
my ram:
£65 - 256mb pc2700 samsung original (DLT chips) - 143mhz max 6-2-2-2. returned to shop.
£65 - 256mb pc2700 samsung original (DLT chips) - 205mhz max 7-3-3-2.5 2.6v. in dads pc.
replacement for above - 256mb pc2700 twinmos w. samsung (CLT chips) - 225mhz+ 7-3-3-2.5 (2.6v!!!). sitting on top of my psu atm
£20 - 256mbpc3200 twinmos w. mtec - 225mhz+ 7-3-3-2.5 2.6v. also sitting atop my psu
£70 - 512mb pc3500 corsair cas2 - 200fsb 2-2-2-12 2.7v. cam etoday in post, runing in my mobo now
£70 - 512mb pc3500 corsair cas2 - 200fsb 2-2-2-12 2.7v. cam etoday in post, runing in my mobo now

the 2 sticks of corsair cost me £140 inc second hand. i thought this is quite good, £70 per stick. it would have cost atleast £90 new. i intend to sell 2 of the other sticks for about £70.
currently my mobo (nf7-s rev2 chipset voltage = 1.7) cant do more than 200fsb at 2-2-2-12, while it was able to do 225fsb at 2.5-3-3-7. i intend to volt mod it to allow faster fsb at 2-2-2-12 timings. for those that say it makes little or no difference, here is soem benchmark results from 3dm2k1:
r9700np - core 446.40 mem 311.40 3dm2k1 = 17412 - 2.2ghz cpu 200fsb cl2.5-3-3-7
r9700np - core 446.40 mem 311.40 3dm2k1 = 17677 - 2.3ghz cpu 209fsb cl2.5-3-3-7
r9700np - core 446.40 mem 311.40 3dm2k1 = 17744 - 2.2ghz cpu 200fsb cl2-2-2-12

(results may be very different for p4 users that do similar tests!) having 200fsb at 2-2-2-12 clearly beats a cpu clocked 100mhz higher, with 9mhz higher fsb, at 2.5-3-3-7 timings. but imo thats not a fair comparason - the mobo is limiting the ram at 225 for 2.5-3-3-7, or 200 for 2-2-2-12. so we should only compare with the old ram at 225fsb (so we can decide if a higher fsb, or tighter timings, makes the best performance). i however, can not be arsed. i am assuming i wont get this mobo any higher than 250mhz with 2.5-3-3-7 with volt mods, and the old ram (the pc2700 in particular) will need higher voltage, and will get very hot. that leaves voltmoding for 2-2-2-12 at highest speed possible the best chioce.
unfortunatly i havent got any records of benches done at 225fsb - mainly becuase i dont think i tryed getting to windows with it that high. it was only done at that speed on my old nf7-s rev1.1 which i killed by letting the nb overheat (it was watercooled, but very bad contact). if this corsair is capable i may try it later at 225 @ looser timings (2.5-3-3-7, so i can compare with other results)

also i remember reading an article about ram recently. it was very unfairly tested - using p4's for the testing on a cpu sensitive benchmark with different speed fsb. obvisly the stock fsb with low timings would be worse than a p4 overclocked wth higher fsb and resoanbly good timings.

the annoying thing is all the GOOD ram chips are no longer being made - samsung CLT, winind BH-5 etc.. it seems the good chips just cost tooo much to make, if they were still being made then choosing ram would be easy - get the cheapest ram you can find that has the best chips on it. this corsair ram is old so im hoping its BH-5

[dgr]

Obviously those who have already spent nearly £300 on 1GB of LL memory will argue that it's better than other memory, but they're just the same as those who spend £300-400 on an LCD and claim it's better than a CRT!

have you ever used an LCD for sustained times? i have and love lcds, they give you no eyestrain, are shaper, look hella nice and fit well on my desk.

granted i paid for it but a decent monitor is one of the best things you can spend your cash on!

dgr

[Enverex]

They are still anoying for anything that runs at non-native res or games.

Anyway, Don't buy any of the "A" (CH-5) type Kingston HyperX. Costs 85 quid for 512MB and it wont even run at 200mhz at best timings and wont even reach 220 at all where as my 50 quid BH-5 Twinmos does.

[Stoo]

Well, some of you will already know my opinion of Custom PC

Suffice to say it doesn't surprise me in the least that the artice is flawed and pointless

[Skii]

Interesting stuff gents. I upgrade purely to fly flight-sims which are probably the most GPU and CPU demanding programs available. If I didn't play games, I'd still be quite happily running my old Amd K-6

[SilentDeath]

They are still anoying for anything that runs at non-native res or games.

Anyway, Don't buy any of the "A" (CH-5) type Kingston HyperX. Costs 85 quid for 512MB and it wont even run at 200mhz at best timings and wont even reach 220 at all where as my 50 quid BH-5 Twinmos does.

hmm very interesting. have you got any ch-5 atm? im interested in the voltage needed to run at 12-2-2-2 @ 217fsb. as i said before its the CHIPs that matter, not the make. BH-5 is no longer being made, and CH-5 is its replacement. that means most current ram being released, that has low timings and high fsb, will be CH-5.
my corsair that i got today is half great, but half disapointing. im not bothered tooo much though as it didnt cost me what new sticks would have, and if this is BH-5 then it would also perform a lot better too....
anyway i just done some more testing with memtest86 looping test 5
:
FSB-CL-RAS Precharge-RAStoCAS-TRAS(?)
200,2-2-2-12,2.6v - errors
200,2-2-2-12,2.7v - pass
200,2-2-3-12,2.6v - pass
220,2.5-3-3-12, 2.6v - errors, very unexpected for this ram
217,2-2-3-12,2.8v - got a few errors on 2nd/3rd pass
217,2-2-2-12,2.9v - got errors after a few passes probably related to too much heat.

is there any way to tell what chips they are without removing the heatspreaders? and/or do i acctually have any warrenty on these (second hand - are warrentys transferble?).
what is safe voltage for corsair ram? i assume 2.8 is but 2.9 seems a bit high - maybe better cooling needed

[Enverex]

SilentDeath: Yeah, I have. This Kingston HyperX PC3200 (2-3-2-6-1) RAM I just bought is CH-5 and it is utter crap. It wont reach 220 FSB even at 3.2v and lowest timings.

The warranties are transferable as long as you have proof of purchase for it.

My old cheap-o Twinmos does better (Though it is BH-5).

[BUFF]

Also depends what they ran it on - P4s don't really seem to care about timings but fsb makes differences whereas on AMD tight timings do make a difference as well as fsb.

[mark22]

I bought some fairly cheap Geil 512mb sticks a while ago and both run fine at 440mhz in my box. I've never tried mucking around with the timings or understood what they do, but i know my pc is faster and fine at £40 a stick.

[Butuz]

Thats like testing all the race tracks in the UK in a 50cc go cart! Your never gonna ever get to notice what makes one track better then the other, so you cant possibly make a judgement on whether 20million quids worth of silverstone is better than 100,000 quids worth of acrington stanley go gart raceway!!!

Typical PC magazine, miss the point of what theyre trying to review entireley.

Butuz

[SilentDeath]

right, this pc3500 i have is apparently BH-5 but runs nowhere near as good as i was led to belive it should by other bh-5 owners.
Enverex - with bh-5/ch-5, what voltage did you run it at usually, and did you use any extra cooling? from my testing it seems upto 2.8 voltage helps, but at 2.9 it starts to get too hot and needs extra cooling, more voltage probably wouldnt help as much or might make it less stable... i have some v nice memsinks i made with attached 92mm fan, but i cant use witout removing the heatspreaders which i dont want to do due to warrenty (even though they are really crappy heatspreaders!)

Enverex - some ram will just not run with some low tmings. have you tryed your ch-5 at 2.5-3-3-7 for example, it might reach 280+ fsb, even though it cant get 220 at 2-2-2-7...?